Day Nine

by Clayton Spann

  Monday, May 3

  In the chill dawn air Mauer could see his breath. He and Chloe led their horses by the reins as they began the descent down the south slope of Catoctin Mountain. Woods blocked any view of Thurmont—no, he rebuked himself, it was Mechanicstown now—or the pike to Frederick.

  Behind him Chloe looked cold even though she wore a wool coat and a slouch hat with beehive top. The hat was pulled down over her ears and hair.

  “It’ll be warmer in the valley,” he said.

  “I’m okay.” She forced a smile.

  Mauer still couldn’t believe this. Were they really in 1863? He knew for sure that 2015 longer existed. When the two of them and the horses stepped onto the stony spot comprising Transit One, the onlookers—including Hightower, Canon and Darnell—had instantly vanished. Mauer shivered, and from more than the cold air.

  They had repeated the process seven more times. All seven times the weather abruptly changed; twice rain replaced sunshine. Once fog enveloped them. The final time two deer popped into existence on the rim of the depression that housed Transit One.

  Mauer had worried that Naylor and Price would stake out Transit One. Chloe and he would make easy targets as they emerged into 1863. Especially so, since Price was an excellent marksman.

  But the two turncoats were obviously long gone, well on their way to either Lincoln or Grant. And Mauer was at least four hours from reaching a telegraph office to sound the alarm.

  Despite the press of time, Mauer led his horse carefully. The slope was less steep here than to the east, but it was tricky enough with loose rocks and downed branches littering the ground. The last thing they needed was injury to them or their mounts.

  They could make time once they hit the road below. Three miles east to Mechanicstown, seventeen south to Frederick, and a final three to Monocacy Junction. At a steady trot they should be able to reach the rail junction and its telegraph by ten o’clock. That is, if Chloe’s rear end held up.

  Last evening at Camp David he had instructed her on how to post. Chloe swore she had it down. From his own memory of learning to ride, Mauer knew a short lesson wasn’t going to suffice.

  It took twenty minutes to reach the road in the valley. The road, smooth macadam yesterday as they flew in on Marine One, had transformed into undulating dirt. Shadow covered the narrow lane.

  “You okay?” he asked Chloe.

  “I’m fine.” Another forced smile.

  “You need a hand mounting?”

  She shook her head. But two attempts found her still on the ground. She didn’t protest as he boosted her into the saddle.

  He started the horses at a walk. He would let Chloe get more used to her horse before they launched into a trot. He saw her attempting to post. Her timing was off but he didn’t say anything.

  Again he wished he could perform this mission on his own. Chloe was going to be a burden even if she gave it her all, which she would. Solo he could move so much faster. He would have insisted on coming alone if that didn’t limit him to a week.

  Shortly he put the horses into a trot. Chloe bounced like a beach ball on her saddle, but there was no help for it.

  They rode side by side so Chloe would not have to eat dust. She soon gave up trying to post, but she didn’t complain about the pounding her butt must be taking. She just grimly kept riding.

  A swell of affection arose. He fought it off. That was nonsense, any chance of romance between them. He did accept a powerful bond of friendship existed. A bond akin to that formed between comrades on the battlefield, for indeed they had repeatedly shared and survived peril.

  They reached Mechanicstown within half an hour. Upon entering the town—their first sign of civilization—Mauer for a moment found it hard to breathe. He told himself to relax. The disorientation, the sense of utter unreality, would pass. It had to.

  Before them stood a village right out of an 1800’s movie set. Except this was not a set, nor a reenactment, nor a quaint Amish community. This was the real thing.

  Real chicken coops, stables, carriage houses, spring houses, outhouses. Real pumps and wells. Real shutters on the tidy dwellings. Real lack of power or telephone lines.

  White smoke rose from a score of chimneys. The pleasant smell of burning wood pervaded the brisk air.

  It was not yet six in the morning, but people were about. They were dressed much like the Amish. Everybody wore headgear, the women full length dresses, the men plain coats and heavy beards. Black and brown were favorite colors for clothing.

  Mauer and Chloe were watched with curiosity. Especially Chloe, who had ridden in wearing pants and sitting astride in the saddle. The hat pulled low obviously did not fool anyone as regards to her gender. Two men standing under the eave of a store pointed and snickered.

  Let them snicker all they wanted. Damned if he would have Chloe ride hard miles sidesaddle and in a dress.

  They paused only minutes in Mechanicstown. While they watered the horses in front of the livery stable, Mauer asked passing residents about war news. People told of a battle in progress in Virginia. Somewhere near Fredericksburg. Fortunately there was no word of an attack on Lincoln or Grant.

  The villagers spoke with German accent and fractured syntax. The gist was that the Army of the Potomac sure had Bobby Lee this time; General Hooker outnumbered him two to one. They didn’t know why Lee sent Longstreet away. “Now comes it for the rebel,” they chortled.

  Nobody named the battle. Which Mauer knew would shortly become all too famous. Chancellorsville was to be Lee’s greatest victory and one of the Union’s darkest moments. The mortal wounding of Stonewall Jackson would provide the North with faint silver lining.

  Once out of Mechanicstown Mauer pushed their mounts on the level, hard packed pike. Under partly cloudy skies the air thankfully remained cool. They paused only once to rest and water the horses. By nine they reached Frederick. By nine-thirty Monocacy Junction came into view.

  Curving tracks formed the triangular junction. His father had told him the junction—called a wye by the railroad—was the first of its sort in the country. The wye allowed trains to smoothly change direction.

  The branch line headed north back to Frederick. The main line ran east to Baltimore and southwest towards Harpers Ferry. This B&O junction had been a key transportation and communication point throughout the Civil War.

  The interior of the wye held two rows of wall tents. A dozen or so blue clad troops strolled or sat around the white tents. A few campfires glowed, and as they drew close Mauer smelled bacon cooking and coffee beans roasting.

  Pairs of soldiers with rifles guarded the rail switches at each point of the wye. More men were posted past the east switch at the trestle over the Monocacy River.

  Between the switches on the main line stood a small station house. Some civilians with tools loitered on the tracks before its platform. Beyond the station other soldiers were constructing a log blockhouse. Beyond the blockhouse lay a covered bridge that carried the pike over the tree lined river.

  His eyes however centered on the conjunction of telegraph wires at the station house. His heart thumped. Now, after the eternity of the ride from Mechanicstown, he was only moments from staying the hand of Allison Naylor.

  They dismounted where the pike crossed the B&O. His rear end gave thanks as he got off. He was sure Chloe’s did too. From road dust she looked like she had been rolled in flour. As must he.

  The sentries at the west switch challenged them. Mauer produced papers stating their identities: Edwin and Lillian Stein. The Steins were authentic Pinkerton agents. One paper bore a letterhead from the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the other from the War Department.

  “I have urgent messages to send,” he said. “The President is in danger.”

  He might as well have said he was from Mars. The two sentries, both scraggly bearded teenagers, were staring a hole through Chloe.

 
“Who’s she?”

  “My wife Lillian. As the papers say.” Mauer kept his voice even despite the boy’s surly tone.

  “What’s she doing in man’s clothes?”

  “Let us by or get your commander out here,” said Mauer. “Lincoln’s life depends on my message.”

  That snapped their eyes back to him. They studied his papers. Finally the taller of the two demanded he hand over his revolver.

  “The horses stay here, too.”

  Mauer raised no objection.

  “Tim, take ‘em over. But keep a sharp watch.”

  The tall soldier called after them. “If you’re spies, we’ll hang you. Both.”

  “Sure will,” growled their escort. He now carried his rifle at port arms.

  Mauer supposed he couldn’t blame their hostility. The B&O railroad had been a prime Confederate target since the first days of the war. He and Chloe could easily be scouting the junction in advance of a raid.

  Near the station lay stacks of ties and rail lengths. Most certainly for repairs if the rebels tore up tracks. He also spotted drums of copper wire, for use if the telegraph lines were cut—as they would be by Stuart’s cavalry during the Gettysburg campaign.

  The soldier handed them off to a none too pleased major, but not before Mauer gave the boy a half dollar to water the horses.

  The chunky major wore signal corps insignia on his black slouch hat. He took a long time studying Mauer’s identification as they stood under the eave of the station platform.

  As the major inspected the papers, Mauer explained he and his wife had been assigned to infiltrate Copperhead groups in Maryland. They were to determine how far these blackguards were willing to go to aid the South.

  Mauer said that during the past month he and his wife had gotten in with the Sons of Liberty in Boonsboro. The bunch there had wind of a plot to kill Lincoln and Grant. Members from Ohio were supposedly en route to Washington and Mississippi to carry out the assassinations.

  The officer scowled. “I’ll have to confirm you are who you say. May take awhile.”

  “Major, we don’t have a while. I’ll tell you again, Lincoln and Grant are in the gravest danger. My messages must go out now.”

  “You show up out of nowhere, and I am supposed to just swallow this tale?”

  “You better. If Lincoln gets shot this afternoon because you delayed, what do you think they’ll do to you? I’d say you’d get a rope rather than a firing squad.”

  The flabby faced major reddened, then mouthed something. But he gestured toward the station door.

  “Follow me. She stays outside.” He called to a loitering soldier. Mauer swore the soldier was not more than sixteen. He imagined many boys lied about age, and by this time the casualty riddled Union forces weren’t going to ask questions.

  “Barnes! Watch this...lady.”

  “Yas sir.”

  Mauer turned to Chloe. “Lillian, keep an eye on the horses.” Each horse carried a haversack and two carpetbags. He couldn’t trust the soldier boys not to be light fingered. He especially couldn’t lose what he was going to show Lincoln.

  Chloe wearily nodded. She looked half out on her feet. Mauer felt for the bedraggled woman beside him. Hopefully she could get a bath and some rest in Frederick after they finished here.

  The major took him into a corner office where a middle-aged man sat at a desk bearing a telegraph key. Beside him on a stand rested the sounder, which was clattering away. The man in white shirt and checkered vest recorded swiftly on paper.

  The clattering stopped. The operator turned to the major and said, “Train leaving Martinsburg is behind schedule. About half an hour.”

  “Forget that, Bart. Do exactly as this man says. You have my full authorization.”

  The balding operator eyed Mauer. “What do you have, friend?”

  “Three messages. Can you send as I talk?”

  The operator looked offended. “Of course I can.”

  “First message is to Ward Lamon at the Executive Mansion. The second also goes to Washington, to the Secretary of War. The third is to the provost marshal of the Army of the Tennessee. Assign each message top priority.”

  The operator did a double take. The grim major nodded assent.

  “Major, they should be ciphered.”

  “It doesn’t matter if the messages are in the clear,” said Mauer. “Might even help. I’m including a description of the plotters and the more people aware of them, the better.”

  Again Bart looked at the officer.

  “Do as he says,” said the major.

  Mauer began dictating. The brass key rapped in synchrony as he spoke.

  Chloe Bryant paced the weathered planks of the platform. The soldier Barnes kept running his eyes up and down her. She tried to ignore him.

  She needed to pee. She had squatted behind a tree on the road from Mechanicstown, but now it was as if she hadn’t gone at all. She looked around for some covering foliage.

  Besides having to pee, she was bone tired. Every inch of her torso ached. Add getting only a couple hours sleep after the hectic preparations of yesterday, she felt pounded.

  But she was not going to complain to Jack. Last night he hadn’t gotten any more sleep than she. And she was certainly in better physical condition, as she regularly jogged, was fourteen years younger, and had never suffered brutal torture.

  That didn’t mean she couldn’t complain to herself. Besides the riding aches, her biceps really throbbed. She and Jack had both taken a half dozen inoculations last evening.

  They must have put the tetanus shot in her left arm. They had warned her the tetanus would later mimic a hard punch. Probably all the shots—diphtheria, typhoid, smallpox, cholera, even bubonic plague—contributed to her feeling like absolute crap.

  “Hey, sissy.”

  Bryant turned to see two burly young men, neither in a uniform, grinning up at her. They stood on other side of the tracks. One carried a shovel and the other a sledgehammer. They were probably with the railroad.

  “What you doing in those bloomers?” one asked.

  “Bet she’s a suffragette.”

  “Bet more than that. Saw you riding in with your legs spread. I can spread ‘em even wider.”

  Bryant stared at them with disbelief. Even in the vulgar culture of her era, two men would not have come up and addressed a woman like that.

  “Want some free love, sissy? We can give plenty of that.”

  They just stood there, leering and chuckling. The soldier guard was smiling too.

  “Cat got your tongue, little missy?”

  Aches were forgotten as her temper rose. She readied a stream of invective laden with f-words. She would burn the ears off these scumbags.

  At the last instant she held her tongue. What if they returned the curses, and Jack heard? He wouldn’t let go insult to her or any woman. There could be a fight, with Jack hurting or killing the men. Then where would they be?

  She turned her back on them and walked down the platform. Their laughter followed her footfalls.

  “That’s enough, fellas,” the guard finally said. “Better get back to work ‘fore the major sees you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Barnes.” But the two drifted off.

  Bryant turned to the soldier, the boy really, and said “Thank you.” She kept sarcasm out of her voice.

  He nodded.

  Then she asked, demurely as she could feign, “Is there a facility around? I have a call of nature.”

  “Privy out back.”

  “I’ll go there now.”

  “I gotta stand outside.”

  She again withheld invective. “Fine.”

  When she opened the door of the wooden outhouse, the reek about bowled her over. She didn’t think she could use it. Wetting her pants looked the better option.

  “Well, go on, missy.”

  “Don’t call me missy.”

  “
You going or not?”

  Bryant drew a deep breath, the deepest of her life, and stepped in. She dropped her pants, sat on rough board, and urinated with speed. She made it back out before sucking in air again.

  Jesus fucking Christ, she almost screamed as she slammed shut the door.

  “Don’t take it off the hinges, miss—ma’am.”

  “You just shut up.”

  “You can’t—“

  “I can talk to you how I want, sonny boy. You say anything else I don’t like I’ll have you transferred from this soft duty to the front.”

  The youth looked dubious, but he did stay quiet.

  Five minutes after she returned to the platform, Jack and the officer came out the station door. She was surprised to see them shake hands.

  “Thank you again, Major.”

  “Pleased to be of service, Mr. Stein. Sorry you’ll have to stop over at Relay.”

  “Can’t be helped.”

  “My pass should get you in the hotel.” The major patted Jack’s shoulder as he sidled alongside him. “States you are on top War Department business, you are to get full cooperation from everyone.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Hear Relay House is fancy.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be changing our clothes.”

  “Wasn’t suggesting that, Mr. Stein.”

  Jack smiled without mirth. “Of course not. Well, we had best be going.”

  “Certainly. Good luck to you and your wife.” The major tipped his hat to Bryant.

  As they rode away Bryant asked, “How’d you get him so buddy buddy? Earlier you threatened him with execution.”

  “He’s no fool. He knows we’re off to see Lincoln and Stanton.” Another mirthless smile. “He’s hoping I put in a good word about him.”

  That smile had always chilled her. It was one of the few things she did not like about Jack.

  The smile bespoke the cruelty that existed side by side with his abundant decency. That cruel streak let Jack do the terrible things necessary to save the country. But as he saved the country, time after time, the cruelty had become ever more embedded.

  He paused once they were back on the road. He was looking across the fields to a cluster of farm buildings maybe a half mile away.

  “What is it, Jack?”

  “Just…this hasn’t changed that much. I mean I was here as a kid. This was, or will be, a battlefield. ‘The battle that saved Washington’, they call it. It’ll happen next summer, when Lew Wallace—he’s the guy who wrote Ben-Hur—delayed the Confederates enough to keep them from storming into the capital. If they’d done that, it could have turned the war. Lincoln might have lost the election.”

  Bryant took a look around. “Wow.”

  Jack pointed toward the farm buildings with white walls and red roofs. “Artillery fire destroyed that barn, and the rebs trampled all the crops.” He swung in his saddle to point back to the junction. “Before the Union troops retreated, they burned the covered bridge and that blockhouse. It was quite a fight. Two soldiers won the Medal of Honor.”

  Then he laughed. “Didn’t think I would remember that much. I didn’t really want to be here. I was sick of my father’s battlefield tours by then.”

  His face twisted at mention of his father.

  Bryant wished she could pat Jack’s shoulder. The fat faced major was allowed to, she was not. She had vowed to refrain from anything Jack could construe as an advance. She vowed any advance must come from him.

  In Frederick they sold their horses, then stopped at the City Hotel to clean up and change clothes. Bryant was relieved to get into a dress. It stopped the stares and gibes.

  At Camp David she was also given petticoats and a corset, but damned if she would wear them. She particularly didn’t need a corset as she had completely regained her figure after giving birth to Peter.

  Thought of her son stabbed. But she comforted herself with the thought he would not suffer prolonged separation. Even if she stayed two months, upon return to 2015 it was still May 4th. In actuality she would be away from him only a couple days.

  Mid afternoon they caught the train from Martinsburg. She fell asleep immediately, even though a child was bawling at the rear of the crowded passenger car. When she woke she was embarrassed to find her head snug on Jack’s shoulder. She was more embarrassed to detect that she had drooled on the shoulder.

  She apologized profusely, but Jack smiled and said not to worry. This smile was one of pure warmth. Her heart took another knife thrust, as she knew that the affection behind the smile did not signal love.

  And why should she hope for more? Jack fell in love with lively, charming, and very attractive women. She accepted she did not qualify on any of those accounts. Superheroes did not fall in love with computer nerds.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Conductor said we’re about twenty minutes from the junction.”

  Bryant sat up fully. She winced as muscles screamed. Soreness from the ride was setting in.

  “You okay?”

  She patted her left arm. “Shot hurts some. How about you?”

  “Yup. Don’t know which is worse, the tetanus or the plague.”

  Neither arm hurt as much as her thighs. Walking was going to be a torment.

  Well, at least she would not have to do much of it until tomorrow. Tonight they would layover at Relay, nine miles south of Baltimore. Sometime before dawn they were supposed to catch a train coming down from Philadelphia.

  “Are we heading for the White House when we get in?” she asked.

  “Probably be too early. We’ll go to the Willard first. Lillian, remember to call it the Executive Mansion. ‘White House’ is not yet the official term.”

  At Camp David they had plied her and Jack with 1863 minutia. She had already forgotten half. Fortunately Jack was well acquainted with the Civil War era. He said he’d been marinated in it, as his father—his traitor father—had been a Civil War buff.

  The passenger car rocked and rattled as it clickety clacked over the tracks. Flakes of soot occasionally flew in through the half open window to settle on her dress or face. She could hear the engine chugging, and its whistle blew often enough to annoy. The wooden seat pressed hard against her tender buttocks.

  She wanted to gripe, but she would not. Even primitive train travel beat riding a horse.

  And what did anything she endured since crossing Transit One compare to the horrors Jack had experienced during his long service? What did the combined worst days of her life compare to a single day of Jack’s as a captive of the Chinese? Nothing.

  The smell of fried chicken wafted from a seat ahead. The mouths of a man and woman were tearing at drumsticks, and hunger welled in her to the point of excruciation. She had not eaten since leaving Transit One.

  Well, she had, a stale sandwich bought at the passenger depot in Frederick. She hadn’t been that hungry then, and ate it only at Jack’s insistence. Now she could devour a six course meal.

  But she would not complain. Never, in Jack’s presence.

  Shortly the conductor came through to announce that Relay was just ahead.